An article fabricated on a production line may be inspected for certain features, including defects that might degrade the performance of the article or a system including the article. For example, a hard disk for a hard disk drive may be fabricated on a production line and inspected for certain surface features, including surface and subsurface defects that might degrade the performance of the disk or the hard disk drive. When a surface defect is detected, the article may be deemed unusable and discarded, irrespective of how superficial the defect. In some other instances, articles identified with defects may be salvaged by removing the article from the production line to a separate specialized removal device, to remove defects from the article. However, utilizing a separate specialized removal device may be time intensive. That is, it may take up to half a day to remove defects from a single article, and cause further net production delays.